The present invention relates to a digital PID (P: Proportional, I: Integral, D: Derivative) process control apparatus having auto tuning function.
A process control apparatus in general use is a PID controller. In the known PID controller, PID control parameters are determined by an operator from the input and output data of a process which he has observed. These PID control parameters are manually input by the operator. This manual inputting of parameters is extremely difficult and considerably time-consuming.
Another PID controller is known which automatically tunes process parameters to optimal values in accordance with the dynamic characteristics of the process. To identify the dynamic characteristics of the process, it is necessary to greatly change control signals to be input to the process. Therefore, the automatic tuning of PID control parameters cannot be performed at all times. This is why the automatic tuning is manually started by an operator in the conventional automatic tuning PID controller. To achieve a correct start of automatic tuning, the operator must supervise changes in dynamic characteristics of the process. Supervising such changes is a cumbersome and time-consuming operation. Furthermore, expensive equipment such as a recorder and indicating devices must be provided for supervising, resulting in inconvenience. Since changes in the dynamic characteristics of the process must be monitored by the operator so as to identify the need to restart automatic tuning, good tuning cannot be performed. Furthermore, the operator may not notice the changes in dynamic characteristics of the process. In this case, product quality and plant efficiency are degraded, and the safety of the plant may not be guaranteed. In this manner, in the conventional process control apparatus, once the dynamic characteristics of the process are identified at the beginning, these characteristics cannot be basically retuned, thus giving rise to a lack of flexibility.